


deconstruction

by Aenqa



Category: Sly Cooper (Video Games)
Genre: Adventure, Canon Universe, Canon-adjacent, Character Study, F/M, Romance, Violence, will add tags/warnings as necessary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 23:07:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19119568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aenqa/pseuds/Aenqa
Summary: A study on the construction and subsequent deconstruction of one Sly Cooper in the mind of one Carmelita Fox.





	deconstruction

            The Interpol Headquarters building stands firmly on its plot of land in France, interrupting a carefully-planned civilian park, both utilitarian in its blockiness and glamourous in its flashy glass exterior. Just looking at it gives onlookers mental images of brilliant detectives, devious criminals, fantastic and exciting stories of car chases, interrogations, raids and arrests gone sideways. And for certain people in this building, those stories are true.

            Strangely enough, you never hear exciting stories about Interpol interns.

            Newly-instated Intern Carmelita Fox is learning why very quickly.

            A new pile of paperwork falls with a sizeable thump onto Carmelita’s desk and she groans, dropping her head onto the smooth wooden surface.

            “What, you’re not having fun?” asks her supervisor, a friendly, round squirrel woman named Angela Fairfax.

            “This is not what I had in mind when I applied for this position,” Carmelita mumbles into her arms.

            Angela chuckles and crosses her arms. “And what did you have in mind? You thought they were going to put you on the front lines on day one?”

            Carmelita lifts her head. Her eyes are bleary and she adjusts her glasses from where her motion of despair has pushed them up her forehead. “No. But I thought I would be doing something to help the officers. Working on tasks for active cases. Not just sorting through paperwork on cases colder than my lunch.”

            Angela quirks her eyebrow. “What’s your lunch?”

            “Salad,” Carmelita moans dramatically, dropping her head back to the desk.

            Angela shakes her head and glances around the small office. All around them, other interns sit at small desks just like Carmelita’s, dutifully tapping away at their computers as they transfer old files into Interpol’s new digital database. They are all completing their tasks quickly and without complaint, a vast improvement on Carmelita’s hesitancy. Then again, few of them show as much raw potential as Angela has seen the young fox display. So instead of scolding her, Angela simply taps the tall pile of paperwork insistently. “I know this doesn’t seem important, Carmelita, but it is. Our files are so outdated, it’s a real liability. We must transfer these files accurately, or we may lose them entirely. That’s real responsibility.”

            Carmelita lifts her head again. Her hair falls loosely over her shoulders and she sighs as she nods. “I know. I’m sorry, Angela. And I get it. I have to put in my time. But I’m just so anxious to get to the exciting part. I wish I could just… _skip_ this part of it.”

            “The exciting part is _not_ guaranteed, young lady,” Angela says sternly. “And you better not take _this_ opportunity for granted.”

            Carmelita nods and dips her head a little bit, guiltily.

            Angela sighs and presses her lips together. “Look, Carmelita… while you’re doing this data entry. Don’t just look at the dates and the names. Look at the facts of the case.” She pulls the file off the top and flips past the first few fact sheets to an affidavit written by an Interpol officer. “Read the stories. You can learn a lot from where past officers have tread. And hey – these might be cold cases, but cold isn’t closed. You never know – you might pick up something new.”

            Carmelita’s ears perk up at this, and she grins slowly at Angela. “Okay. Yeah. You might be right. Thanks, Angela,” she says, and eagerly pulls a new case off the pile.

            Angela shakes her head and laughs a little in exasperation as she walks away. Carmelita will likely be the least efficient intern to ever come through her program. But she’s going to be an excellent detective someday – Angela can tell. And that’s exactly what she’s going to tell _her_ supervisors when they inevitably inquire about the bright young fox with a remarkably high score on her application exams.

            But her redirection is more of a stalling technique to stop Carmelita from quitting in a bout of melodramatic passion.

            So imagine Angela’s surprise when Carmelita drops a paper-thick file on her desk a week later, her eyes bright and focused.

            “This case,” Carmelita says. “There’s something up with this case.”

            Angela glances at the name on the file and her stomach sinks. “Oh, Carmelita,” she says, “you don’t want to go messing around with this case.”

            The immediate disapproval puts a damper on Carmelita’s enthusiastic expression, but only for a split second. “Why not?” she asks, her tail twitching behind her. She is dressed smartly in dark jeans and a red cardigan, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. The outfit looks calculated, as though she picked it specially for this conversation. “It’s fascinating. And I think there’s a gap here that -,”

            Angela pushes the Cooper file across the desk and looks at Carmelita firmly. “Carmelita, I _know_ you’ve heard of the Cooper clan. This case was poured over by dozens of Interpol’s top detectives. There were a lot of loose ends that drove a lot of people crazy. People resigned over this case. I don’t think it’s wise for you to claim you found something they couldn’t.”

            “But I’m not claiming that, really,” Carmelita insists, pushing the file back towards Angela, “it’s just that I’ve had more time.”

            Angela scowls, now, because this is actually starting to piss her off. “You had more time in a week than they did in months?”

            _“No,_ just – just _listen_ ,” Carmelita says, sitting down across from Angela. The squirrel sits back in her chair and crosses her arms.

            “The Coopers had a son,” Carmelita starts.

            Angela puts up a hand. “I’m going to stop you there.”

            “Wait. Just -,”

            “You’re right. The Coopers had a son. He was eight years old. He was immediately put into state custody and given a lawyer that protected that poor kid’s right to remain silent on the case of his parents’ murder after he watched them get butchered in his own damn living room. That’s a problem for you?”

            The bluntness of it stops Carmelita and she pales faintly. “No. That’s not what I mean.”

            “Then what do you mean?” Angela sighs.

            Carmelita takes a deep breath and starts again. “The Coopers had a son _who_ was placed into state custody _because he was a minor._ The file says he was placed into an orphanage after failing to find a suitable foster placement. But because of his lawyer and because he didn’t want to talk to us, we never got anything out of him. Interpol never got an interview with him, despite the fact that he watched the whole thing happen.”

            Angela raises her eyebrow and waits for Carmelita to say something she doesn’t already know.

            Carmelita jabs a finger at the file. “That kid was born in the same year as me. Meaning. He turns 18 this year. Meaning. He’s no longer under state custody. And meaning. We could interview him. If he consents.”

             Angela opens her mouth. Then stops. Closes it. And looks at the file.

            “And considering,” Carmelita continues, the lack of reproach obviously exhilarating her, “considering that the only reason Interpol had such an impossible time with this case was because we had _no_ leads – because Cooper had _so many_ potential enemies – talking to their kid would have been the golden ticket. There’s no way he wouldn’t know exactly who attacked his parents, and there’s no way he’s forgotten. Maybe he didn’t want to talk to us when he was eight, but maybe he does now. Maybe he wants to solve this thing just as much as we do. I don’t know. But it’s worth a shot. Don’t you think?”

            Angela sighs, then, and reaches across the desk to close the file. “Carmelita. Do you see me as trustworthy? I mean, do you generally trust me when I try to give you advice?”

            “Yes,” Carmelita says, “of course.”

            “Okay. Then take my advice right now when I tell you to drop this,” Angela says, and ignores the way Carmelita practically wilts in her seat. “This is far more trouble than what could ever be worth it for you. At best, you get yourself dragged into an old case that will probably haunt your track record for years. At worst, you start making enemies in Interpol. Fast.”

            “But I’m right, no?” Carmelita presses, her ears folding back. “I’m right? This could be a lead?”

            Angela presses her lips into a then line and shakes her head slowly. “You just don’t get it, Carmelita. In this case, it doesn’t really matter whether or not you’re right. It’s just not worth the trouble.”

            Carmelita’s brow furrows and she stares extra hard at the file.

            “I’m not telling you this to rain on your parade, Carmelita,” Angela says. “I’m just trying to look out for you. You hear me? You have a really bright future here. I don’t want one step in the shit to stop you from getting there.”

            The spot of praise brightens her up a bit, but only marginally, and Carmelita reluctantly reaches across the desk to retrieve the Cooper file. “Alright,” she says eventually, “I hear you. Thanks, Angela.”

            Angela nods and watches Carmelita leave with lingering traces of concern. For one, her suspicions are now confirmed that Carmelita isn’t spending any amount of effort on entering those old cases into the database with any detail. If she had, she would have noticed the familiar name, Fairfax, attached to several of the detective affidavits. Angela rubs her face and behind her closed eyelids flash images of that day, some of the clearest memories of her time as a field officer. The house, so normal, so suburban for one of Interpol’s Most Wanted criminals. The carpet, stained rich with blood, far more than she would have ever expected from a simple assassination… the bodies, not only lifeless, but practically torn to shreds…

            And from the closet, a blinking pair of wide, silent eyes.

            This is how Sly Cooper exists in the mind of ex-Inspector Angela Fairfax: a young, fearful child, clinging desperately to a deadly weapon he knows only as his father’s cane, stubbornly refusing to speak to the police no matter how gently they pose their questions. Angela was there on the day they dropped him at the orphanage, sees the tiny figure still clutching at a weapon they could never quite get away from him, shrinking and eventually swallowed up in the doorframe of the enormous, dark estate. She remembers him pitiful and helpless and alone, robbed by a world he had no hand in shaping.

            This is not how Sly Cooper currently exists in the mind of Carmelita Fox.

            Carmelita Fox currently sits at her desk leafing through the Cooper file once more, scouring the pages for any other details about the young raccoon, anything that might help her in what has become a one-woman show at the unknowing behest of Angela Fairfax. For Carmelita, Sly Cooper exists as a question mark. One huge, dark question mark floating through the gaps in the Cooper file. A constant dead-end. No information, no background, no details, no story. Just a frankly ridiculous first name and a last known location. And, for a young, hungry intern, one enormous heaping of raw, untapped potential.

            _A way to stand out,_ Carmelita thinks. _A way to make a difference._

            Carmelita sees Angela emerge from her office and slips the Cooper file underneath her slim stack of completed paperwork, smiles placidly at the squirrel and gets started on the next line of her spreadsheet.

            Scrawled on a paper she slips into her pocket is the address of an orphanage on the outskirts of Paris.

            A starting line.

**Author's Note:**

> hello all and welcome to this, I guess!
> 
> this is pretty much my first venture into publishing multi-chapter stuff for sly cooper. something about the sly story just keeps bringing my imagination back to it, and the fact that there are other people out there right now writing quality longform stuff for sly motivates me to throw my own attempt out into the internet. 
> 
> this story will focus on what were always the most interesting moments for me in the Sly games: the moments created, reinforced, or changed the Sly/Carmelita dynamic, and how the two saw each other. very vague, I know, I hope that will become clearer as I go along. so, this will be linear, but it will not be a straight-through retelling, it will jump through time, sometimes lots of time. I plan to touch on scenes from pre-canon (like this chapter), throughout Sly 1, 2, and 3, and if I get that far (lol), maybe into the future. (Sly 4? what's that? idk. maybe that.) 
> 
> I plan to keep this "canon-adjacent" meaning I love the characters and the original story and timeline that the games created, but not so much that I'm not willing to fudge details and create a sort-of-alternate-universe to explore different possibilities for these characters. my least favorite part of writing any fic is trying to keep everything in line with strict lore and considering a lot of the 'lore' is very loosely canonized in these games, I don't feel too bad fudging it a bit. 
> 
> okay that's a lot of notes! can you tell I'm a little strangely nervous about publishing this? thank you so much for giving this first chapter a read, I'll hopefully be putting up the second chapter soon where the boy himself finally makes an appearance!


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